Responsibilities

UBC researchers are personally and directly responsible for the intellectual and ethical quality of their work and must ensure their work meets the requirements of all applicable funding agreements, policies, standards, laws and regulations. If you direct and supervise researchers, you share in this responsibility.

Education

Education is key to ensuring the responsible conduct of research.

UBC students, faculty, post-doctoral fellows and staff have access to a free online course on the responsible conduct of research. This course covers all major aspects of research integrity including publication practices, data acquisition and management, writing, and ethical decision-making. Separate courses relevant to the Life Sciences and Physical Sciences are available, and one for the Social Sciences and Humanities will be online shortly. Register for this course at citiprogram.ca.

Workshops for graduate students on integrity issues are regularly presented through the Graduate Pathways to Success program on the Vancouver campus and the Grad Essentials program on the Okanagan campus. The deans’ offices of the Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies (Vancouver) and College of Graduate Studies (Okanagan), in partnership with the Office of Research Services and the Centre for Scholarly Communication, work with graduate programs, departments, faculties and other units to design and present research integrity offerings customized to the needs of disciplines, which may be combined with the online course.

New postdoctoral fellows and faculty members are oriented to UBC Policy 85: Scholarly Integrity at the annual Research Orientation Days on both the Vancouver campus and the Okanagan campus.

Reporting scholarly misconduct

All members of the University community have a responsibility to report concerns regarding scholarly integrity.

All matters relating to scholarly misconduct, including confidential enquiries, allegations and information related to allegations, should be sent to the Vice President Research & Innovation.

For allegations of scholarly misconduct, the Vice President follows the procedures detailed in Policy 85.

The University will not tolerate any retaliation against anyone who, in good faith, makes an allegation, gives evidence, or otherwise participates in a process under Policy 85. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows may be in particularly vulnerable positions in these situations, and are encouraged to seek advice and support through their academic units or the Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies dean’s office on the Vancouver campus and College of Graduate Studies dean’s office on the Okanagan campus.

The University has a policy specific to the reporting of improper financial activity. Policy 111 details the process to follow to report improper financial activity as well the protection afforded UBC persons who report such concerns in good faith.